Why MYSTERIES? Because that is the genre I read. Why PARADISE? Because that is where I live.
Among other things, this blog, the result of a 2008 New Year's resolution, will act as a record of books that I've read, and random thoughts.

28 May 2017

Melina Marchetta's gripping new novel Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil is part family saga, part crime fiction, and wholly unputdownable.

Chief Inspector Bish Ortly of the London MET, divorced and still
grieving the death of his son, has been drowning his anger in a whisky
bottle. Something has to give. He's no sooner suspended from the force
than a busload of British students on tour in France is hit in a bomb
attack. Bish goes immediately to the scene, not in an official capacity,
but because his daughter Bee was on that bus. Four people have been
killed and another four critically injured.

Bee has mercifully survived, and so too has seventeen-year old Violette
LeBrac. Raised in Australia, Violette has a troubled background.
Thirteen years previously her grandfather bombed a London supermarket,
killing twenty-three people in the process. Her mother, Noor, who
ultimately confessed to helping make the bomb, is serving a life
sentence. But before Violette's involvement in the French tragedy can be
established she disappears, along with a younger male student.

Bish Ortly has another interest in this case besides his daughter: he was involved in Noor LeBrac's arrest.

My Take

A very readable book with plenty of puzzles to solve, and a number of personal interest stories.

The main puzzle is who has put the bomb on the bus and why? One of the victims Violette LeBrac is no stranger to terrorism and the media is quick to make the association and to infer that she has somehow been responsible for this bomb. When Violette goes on the run with another student, Bish Ortly is asked by British security to befriend the other families whose children were on the bus, to find out where Violette might have gone.

The first reviews I saw about this book talked about how good it was to see Melina Marchetta venturing into the world of adult crime fiction. Having now finished the book I'm not sure that that was her intention (even though I have been told that she herself has said so). I thought the author would still see herself writing mainly for an older YA audience, helping them come to terms with some of the serious issues of the adult world, in particular terrorism, racism, and sexuality. I didn't think that so much for the bulk of the book, but certainly felt it in the last few pages.

My rating: 4.5

About the author

Melina Marchetta's first novel, Looking for Alibrandi, swept the pool of
literary awards for young adult fiction in 1993, winning the Children's
Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Award (Older Readers)
among many others. In 2000 it was released as a major Australian film,
winning an AFI award and an Independent Film Award for best screenplay
as well as the NSW Premier's Literary Award and the Film Critics Circle
of Australia Award.

Melina taught secondary school English and History for ten years, during
which time she released her second novel, Saving Francesca, in 2003,
followed by On the Jellicoe Road in 2006, and Finnikin of the Rock in
2008. Saving Francesca won the CBC Book of the Year Award for Older
Readers. On the Jellicoe Road was also published in the US as Jellicoe
Road, and it won the prestigious American Library Association's Michael L
Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature in 2009. In 2008,
Melina's first work of fantasy, Finnikin of the Rock, won the Aurealis
Award for Best Young Adult Novel and was shortlisted for the 2009 CBCA
Award for Older Readers.

Melina's most recent novel, The Piper's Son, was published in 2010 and
has been long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for
the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. Melina's novels have been
published in more than sixteen countries and twelve languages.

25 May 2017

At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read…

My Darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died…

Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his
death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest
secret – something with the potential to destroy not just the life you
built together, but the lives of others too.

Imagine, then, that you
stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive…

Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all – she’s an incredibly
successful business woman, a pillar of her small community and a devoted
wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home.
But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her:
Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia – or each other – but they too are
about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s
secret.

My Take

I have had many people recommend this author to me, and particularly urging me to read THE HUSBAND'S SECRET and BIG LITTLE LIES which I aim to read sometime soon.

There are 3 intertwined stories in THE HUSBAND'S SECRET. The connections are not obvious at first and I felt initially that I was having to work hard to get the names and the families straight in my head. The main setting is Sydney, Australia, but I didn't think the setting actually mattered. I could see that the stories would appeal to an American audience too.

I've talked with people about whether this is really crime fiction. Certainly a crime was committed and the plot reaches back nearly four decades. But in reality the book is not so much about the crime but about relationships and family. In some ways it is a lot less noir than my usual reading, but there is a strong element of psychological exploration, and the dilemma about what to do with the secret.

So, I'm not going to tell you any more, other than the book was extremely readable, and that this is an author worth following.

22 May 2017

Synopsis (Audible)There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his
hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure, and Cicero’s life is in
ruins.

Exiled, separated from his wife and children, his
possessions confiscated, his life constantly in danger, Cicero is
tormented by the knowledge that he has sacrificed power for the sake of
his principles.

His comeback requires wit, skill and courage -
and, for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more
the supreme senator in Rome.

But politics is never static, and no statesman, however cunning, can safeguard against the ambition and corruption of others.

Riveting and tumultuous, Dictator
encompasses some of the most epic events in human history yet is also
an intimate portrait of a brilliant, flawed, frequently fearful yet
ultimately brave man - a hero for his time and for ours.

My Take

It took some time to get used to the different narrator in this series (the earlier books IMPERIUM and LUSTRUM had been narrated by Bill Wallis who had done such a good job).

The story resumes with Julius Caesar in power and the Roman Republic in tatters as the Senate struggles for a way to control his megolomania. And then the assassination of Caesar by senators who think they are saving the Republic leads to chaos because there really is no-one to take charge and in the long run Cicero is really too old. He thinks he has Caesar's heir Octavian under control but sadly misjudges the situation.

This series really brings history to life as well has making it relevant to the modern context. The audio books are excellent.

Katie and Eric Knox have dedicated their lives to their
fifteen-year-old daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic
hopeful. But when a violent death rocks their close-knit gym community
just weeks before an all-important competition, everything the Knoxes
have worked so hard for feels suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among
the other parents, revealing hidden plots and allegiances, Katie tries
frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself
drawn, irresistibly, to the crime itself, and the dark corners it
threatens to illuminate.

You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of desire, jealousy, and ambition.

My Take

YOU WILL KNOW ME takes to reader into a world that few of us know much about - that of competitive gymnastics.This is a world of sacrifices, where the family's whole life is dedicated to one goal, and even Katie and Eric's son Drew is affected by the need to give everything to Devon. It strikes you that this is what must happen in the lives of so many elite sporting hopefuls.

But then an apparent hit and run results in the death of a popular member of the gymnastic community and most are only too willing to blame someone who has been in trouble before. All important gymnastic trials are only a few weeks off and nothing must be allowed to disrupt final preparations.

The novel asks some serious questions about the nature of sacrifice and explores the social and psychological pressures behind what is, after all, a sport. What lengths will parents go to to achieve their daughter's potential, but what is actually their own ambition?

'Stoop down and run your
fingers through the damp soil and there in the black coal earth you will
find the splintered remnants of tiny bones and the fragments of a
hundred broken jars, jars that once held so terrible and so marvellous a
secret.'

The remote town in the Welsh valleys was a
wonderful, magical
- but sometimes dangerous - place in which to grow
up. It was there that Iffy, Bessie, Fatty and Billy experienced a plague
of frogs one summer, stumbled upon a garden full of dancing statues,
found a skull with its front teeth missing
- and discovered just what it was that mad Carty
Annie was collecting so secretly in those jars of hers.

But at the end of that long, hot summer of 1963, one of the four children disappeared.

Over thirty years later, retired detective Will
Sloane, never able to forget the unsolved case, returns to Wales to
resume his search for the truth. His investigation will draw him into a
number of interlocking mysteries, each one more puzzling than the last.

Written in a rich, sensuous and lyrical prose style
full of the sights and sounds of childhood, A Jarful of Angels is
a mesmerising, evocative - and wholly unforgettable -
novel of psychological suspense.

My Take

The main story is set in a Welsh village in 1963: impoverished families, unwed mothers, damaged people, lots of secrets. Four children who get up to lots of mischief, who don't always understand what they see and hear, and then one of the children vanishes.

The second part of the tale is told thirty years later, with the narrative interwoven with the earlier tale. Will Sloane, retired, has always been haunted by what he didn't understand about the child's disappearance.

This is a lively plot, but I think the author tried too hard to keep the identity of the missing child secret. As a result there is a lot of confusing detail, because there is more to the story than just a missing child. For a small village there are lots of secrets and mysteries, made even more mysterious because we see so much of them through a child's eyes.

An ordinary couple return from a house swap in the states to find their home in disarray and their guests seemingly missing.

Four strangers struggle to find shelter on a windswept spike of rock in the middle of a raging sea.

They have one thing in common: they all lied.

And someone is determined to punish them...

WHY DID YOU LIE is a terrifying tale of long-delayed retribution from Iceland's Queen of SuspenseMy Take

How to describe this plot? Take 3 seemingly unconnected stories. You know they must be connected somehow but what or who is the connecting point is really elusive. Each of the scenarios is fascinating but how they are linked is hidden until the very end. And there comes a final surprise, a real whammy out of left field.

Credit for making the connections goes to the wife of the journalist who, as a result of his attempted suicide, is lying in hospital on life support. Nina is a policewoman in disgrace, on light duties, supposedly clearing out files in the police station basement. She needs to know why Throstur tried to commit suicide and comes across some old files that link him with her boss.

And then right at the end, after we think we know everything, just a hint that it is not yet all over.

Winner of the 2016 Ngaio Marsh Debut Novel award and long-listed for the
2017 Dublin Literary Award as well as making the finals of the 2016
Ngaio Marsh Crime thriller of the year.

Inside the Black Horse
is a fast-moving thriller, a story of fate, and unlikely love story for
our time. Pio Morgan is waiting outside a pub on a cold winter night.
There is a debt he must pay and no options left. What he does next drags
a group of strangers into a web of confusion that over the course of a
few days changes all their lives. The young Maori widow just trying to
raise her children, the corporate executive hiding his mistake, the gang
of criminals that will do what ever it takes to recover what they've
lost - and the outsider sent to town to try and figure out who did what.
Time is running out for all of them as events take an increasingly dark
turn.

Inside the Black Horse
explores equally the emotions felt by the victim and perpetrator and the
effect of crime on the lives of ordinary people, gang members and drug
dealers. This book could be based in any city in New Zealand. So real
that you can visualize the characters in the book, feel their
desperation, sense their hope for the future, and find compassion for
them as you join them on their journey. With a few good twists along the
way, it’s a great read.

The International Judging panel for the Ngaio
Marsh awards called it “A lucid and potent portrait of good people and
gangsters that is unmistakably Kiwi and a fine crime story with
considerable depth"

My Take:

This book creates an interesting picture of contemporary New Zealand, particularly of a multi- layered drug culture, with a pyramid of users and pushers, with upper layers feeding off the misery of those below. The main characters in this pyramid are Maori born and their elders don't understand what has happened to the old values.

The possibility that the owner of the Black Horse Bar and Casino was somehow involved in the events that took place, gives Peter Butterworth a possible way of covering up the mistake he's made in not having the Black Horse's taking collected in the previous week. He brings in ex-US policeman, private investigator Brian Duncan in the hope that he can find some incriminating evidence.

A really enjoyable and carefully written book with strong and well depicted characters. I liked the way the final results were not entirely predictable.

My Rating: 4.5

About the authorRay Berard is a Canadian born Kiwi writer based in Christchurch, New Zealand.

A
McGill University graduate and five-year member of the NZ Authors
Society, writing has always been his passion, and in recent years a
full-time one.

Inside the Black Horse is his debut novel,
based off a diary he kept during his years supervising betting outlets
for the New Zealand Racing Board. "It's about New Zealand right now, and
what happens when a group of strangers get drawn into each other's
lives after a young man's desperate act."

Ray is currently working on his second Novel, The Diary of a Dead Man.

My pick of the month isIN FARLEIGH FIELD by Rhys BowenFarleigh Place is removed from the war by more than just miles.
While bombs rain down on London just an hour away, life goes on as usual at this Downton Abbey-like estate in the countryside.
Hampered only by a skeletal wartime staff, a dwindling supply of meat
coupons, and an army regiment that's taken up residence at the big
house, Farleigh is almost too idyllic to be real—until one night, when a
soldier with a failed parachute falls to his death on the grounds, and
the war literally hits home for Lord Westerham and his five daughters.

1 May 2017

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each
month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as
naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for April 2017, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You
can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post,
even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to
nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.